I think we have all definitively figured out that I cannot design worth a hill of beans so I am throwing darts at the wall without direction. People don't like, I definitely need to hear that...but without suggestions I will just try another mess and see what happens.

Keep letting me know though. This is a stepping stone to eventually get something useable.

OK, a few things. I would get a few more opinions first, but personally I would like to see Recent Commented and Recent Submissions near each-other.

I don't so much care about Golden Submissions, but Recent HoHs is nice to see, if there's going to be Golden on the main page, it should be one random one, and it shouldn't be a top-shelf feature (not sure how to phrase what I mean).

Random Submissions is a good feature, as is recent promotions. Get rid of icons, we use a lot of weird icons for the forums and they don't generally flow well with the main page.

WE NEED A READILY VISIBLE SHOUTBOX ON THE MAIN PAGE! I can not stress that enough. We need a little place, seperate from the chat, to yell random tidbits at each-other. It was a great feature of the last version that I'm pretty sure we want back.

Get rid of the Hunting.. Creating.. Lactating.. (There's 3, I don't remember exactly what they were at the moment) links a the top. Maybe replace with search bar or obvious link to forums, or link to my next suggestion. I suggest a separate page for your I Am... stuff, for someone who is new to the site and doesn't want to click everything looking for some help.

Finally, I hate to say it, but I really liked the way the Citadel looked before. This setup really feel like a step backwards in usability and user attraction. I hope some better minds than mine will speak up and help get this place shining once more. Strolen, I admire you and appreciate all the work you've done with your site. This place is marvelous. We will make it perfect.

1. The new site is a major step forwards in terms of code and usability. Some of the features, like the recent pages, is worth the upgrade alone.

Designwise it is a step backwards, though I was less than enthusiastic about our previous Princessy site. The question we need to ask ourselves is this: What is most important? Design or usability? I'd prefer both, but at the moment that seems to be outside our grasp. (In some projects I am involved in that step costs millions and millions of dollars alone, requiring thousands of hours from the design and code staff).

2. Yes, at the moment the front page seems cluttered. The avatars don't belong, I am pretty sure of that, and I'd like some more blank space... Room to breathe and to find out where I want to go and what I can do.

3. Instead of avatars, you could go with icons representing user levels. These would have matching colour schemes... preferably.

The stuff that is working on the home page right now iiiis:- The header (down to, and including, the navigation menu)- The footer (it only needs some pixel shifts right and left, to center it all... And you need to remove the search box from the footer)

Parting words:Right now the main site looks like something the admins cooked up, to spread out commentary beyond just what everyone else is commenting on. Do you really need those categories? I say you need "Most recent subs", obviously. That list could even be longer. I remember well my annoyance at having spent 20 hours writing a sub, only to have it drowned in a deluge of MoonHunter and Scrasamax entries.

You don't need more than one random golden.

The hall of honour feature is nice, but make the icon smaller.

What about a "featured monthly graphic"? Some cool fantasy oriented graphic from the archives, or submitted by skilled artists such as MJS?

The main page has alot of potential just waiting to be fulfilled, no doubt about that.

Avatars are messy, but AG's suggestion was a mighty good one. Some symbol representing the level would be sweet.

Goldens should be restricted to one random at the time.

Recent subs list should be a bit longer, aye. We want authors in the spot light for some time after they submit their pieces of art. An idea(just throwing it out there) could be to have the 10 or 20 newest showing and in addition a random 10 of last 50 for some additional sirculation value.

I like the colour setting of the new page, and it could become very usable. As for design I think a cool looking inked dragon in the top left corner would be more than enough and pretty cool. Using ink and no colour would add to the old pargament feeling I think this site should have.

Excellent comments so far. Let me throw out a couple things for comment if you don't mind.

I am not ready to commit to anything but will redesign a little bit sometime this week. I am in the process of a major redesign that is rather, well, significant. Lets just say I based the color scheme on this photo and leave it at that for now: http://www.cumbavac.org/images/MAstainedglasswindow.jpg

From what I have heard, I think we are having difficulty matching what we (experienced Strolenites) want and what first time visitors need or expect in this new web 2.0 world. The "I am..." things are very important for the first time visitors to have immediate direction. Those pages currently suck but they are, hopefully, going to turn into good resources for their focus. Web 2.0 is an ugly buzzword but it is where we are right now and there are some solid homepage design styles that are working well and look nice. I just can't do it.

So keep in mind, if you never visited this site before and you have an interest in roleplaying, what kind of information would you want shown to you and what do you need explained to you about the site? We have to use the homepage to answer some very basic questions about the site. Maybe I can swap the read post play with the explore, search, lactate portion. Will play a little bit with it during the next iteration and see.

I think I am at about 80% convinced to have different homepages if you are logged in or not so now I will have 2 pages I need to get right. Great, more design challenges.

I will update as we go working off your comments as best I can and hopefully we will find something that is close to the format we all want.Thanks again for all your ideas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PoisonAlchemist: Man Muro, you boost my confidence and then you just go crush it with a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Pariah: Don't tell him things like that, if his head gets any bigger he'll float off like a weather ballon :p

It is very plain right now but I am happy that we are going in the right direction. Will do some more subtle changes this weekend and continue to move us forward.

(feel free to suggest changes to ANY other page as well. Going to try and mess with the main category frontpages a little using similiar style ideas that we are doing on the main front and see if we can find something good there too. Any other ideas are always welcome!)

It isn't immediately clear that "more recent subs" is the continuation of "most recent submissions". I can see the need to have less focus on yesterday's arrivals, but I feel the need to... number them in some way. You know: The most recent sub is #1, the one before that is #2, etc.However, numbering them can misguide the Strolenite into believing it is some form of quality ranking, which led me to think that perhaps small font italicized timestamps would be better.

All these graphics can be placeholders for way cooler ones that you come up with. Post the link to the graphic I should use (hopefully they are free to use like the ones I have been grabbing or we ask permission, no problem.)